out of this world
by wiindsong
Summary: Jack thought that after the Nightmare King, he would have no more questions for the Man in the Moon. He was wrong. Now, he has to figure out how to save Pitch's daughter from an untimely death, reconcile with the Nightmare King, and ward off an ancient, galactic force bent on getting revenge. All the while, his powers spiral wildly out of control. Full summary inside.
1. Would You Like a Cup of Tea?

**A/N:** Hey guys. I wasn't actually planning on writing anything here, but Blackice is just so cute. Don't expect full-blown smut or anything like that...unless I change my mind. In case the following 6000 words or so suck, just remember that this is my first story on fanfiction.

**Summary: **Jack thought that after the Nightmare King, he would have no more questions for the Man in the Moon. Unfortunately, he was completely and utterly wrong. Now, he has to figure out how to save Pitch's daughter from an untimely death, reconcile with his old nemesis (if shagging him can be called that), and ward off an ancient, galactic force bent on getting revenge against General Kozmotis Pitchiner and while they're at it, destroy all of Earth along with him. When he signed up to save the world yet again, Jack didn't know that he would be saving it from Dream Pirates, which he quickly learns aren't as fluffy and adorable as they sound. Pitch is certainly not being helpful, but then again, he's having an identity crisis. All the while, Jack's powers spiral wildly out of control, and he finds himself ...becoming Mother Nature?

**Disclaimer**: I do not own Rise of the Guardians, Guardians of Childhood, or anything published that is related to this fiction.

**Warnings:** Slash, Violence, Mild Sexual Content, Mild Gore, Angst.

* * *

_"Scars remind us that the past was real."_

-Shakespeare

* * *

**day one –**

After he woke up from some unsettling dreams, Jack Frost sat up, gasping for air, and clenched the cold sheets beneath his shivering body. Spirals of frost danced across his pale bed as if they sensed the fluctuating mood of their master. He took deep breaths and images of his dream – his _nightmare_ – flickered in his head. The dream was familiar to him. The Guardians had turned on him, they told him that he didn't _belong_ and Jack had wholeheartedly believed because it was true that he didn't – how could he _ever_ fit in with them? And he trusted them more than he did himself. He wrapped his arms around himself and tried to stop the dry sobs. Tears rolled down his white cheeks and hardened into ice. He hardly ever reacted so violently, but it had been so long since this had happened.

Jack frowned, his worry deepening and intensifying the crushing feeling in his chest. The last time a nightmare had found him was when -

Pitch. Pitch Black. _Of course._

The seriousness of this event wasn't lost on Jack, but he tried to be optimistic. Perhaps the years of isolation had damaged his soul more than he knew. Perhaps Sandy had been much too_ tired_ to drive away the nightmares for one night, and relief washed over Jack. He could believe that because he knew that Sandman was the busiest of any of the Guardians. It might be true that it was odd. The absence of dreamsand shouldn't cause a nightmare. But still – Jack wanted it to be true. He didn't want _Pitch_ of all people – if he even was considered a person – to be back.

It constantly harrowed at him, pecked at his conscience no matter how much he tried to brush it off as nothing. Jack considered talking to the other Guardians about this, but something told him not to. He could imagine it now. The twinkle in North's eyes could die out and he would stroke his thick beard thoughtfully. Sandy would project a flurry of images above his head. Tooth's feathers would stand up in alarm. And Bunny. Bunny would polish his boomerangs nervously, as if that would rid the world of any trace of the Nightmare King. He had brought enough worry to his new friends.

But if he didn't know, he would be restless for the entire day. He reached for his staff and felt the familiar wood underneath his fingers. He knew every curve and every knot on it like it was his own arm. Jack hooked the curve, the crook of it on a ledge protruding from the wall. A blast of frost shot out from the tip accidentally and iced the entire surface. Jack brushed his hair back with his hand absently, but the white locks fell back into place like usual. North probably wouldn't notice anyways because Jack's room in his Workshop was made of ice anyways. Suddenly, a strong draft blew the window open and then Jack knew what he had to do.

The wind whispered the answer to him and he wondered why he didn't think of it first. He would check on Pitch's prison. If all went well, it would only be a patch of dirt where grass couldn't grow anymore. If not, well, Jack didn't really want to consider that outcome. He really was very good at forgetting things,_ especially_ if they were somewhat important.

He jumped up and the wind whistled underneath him, creating a gentle platform that lifted him to his feet. His blue eyes looked at the frigid landscape – snow everywhere, a blizzard on the verge of loosening all hell on the North Pole. Perfect conditions for travelling, at least for a frost spirit.

For a moment, as Jack descended from the bed, light on his feet, he felt a moment of hesitation. Should he? _Should he really_? The other Guardians would find the very idea of confronting Pitch ridiculous, especially if he wanted to do it alone. _But maybe_, Jack thought. _Maybe I'm not a Guardian. Maybe I'm not one of them_. The thought stung, but the words rang true. Jack hated that it was true. He hated himself for making it true.

"So, wind," Jack whispered, his breath creating fragile ice crystals in the air. "What do you think, old friend? Should we go check on Pitch?" The wind nipped at his heels like a skittish young horse. Jack laughed. It wasn't hard to tell what the wind was thinking, even if it couldn't speak. The wind was as good as a friend to him as any of the Guardians.

"Alright, alright. I know you're excited, but get a hold of yourself," Jack said, still grinning. "We'll go on a little adventure together, just like old times." He jumped on the windowsill, crouching, the fingers on his staff tingling like a homing sense. It was because, Jack began to realize, that anywhere cold and frosty was home to him. Which was why the North Pole was one of his favorite places to stay. In fact, Jack would have stayed there longer and more frequently if he didn't think that it bothered North.

He pushed the window open wider until the temperature of the room dropped violently. The wind impatiently blew at him and soon Jack was a couple of inches away from being carried away on it. Jack settled and with ephemeral resolve launched himself out the window, limbs astray, whooping like a madman. The wind seemed to share his enthusiasm, its harsh gusts even wilder than usual.

"Let's see what you've got today!" Jack shouted, somersaulting through the thinning clouds like an Olympic gymnast. The moisture froze on his body, but the high speed at which Jack traveled at made them fly off, leaving a trail of frozen shards everywhere that he went. He had forgotten what it felt like to let loose completely like this. Spending time cooped up in North's Workshop had been nice for a while, until it became suffocating. Winter was free, so Jack was a free spirit too.

"Is that _all_ you've got? I'm disappointed," Jack taunted, and a stream of air made snow hit him in the face without warning – _hard_. "Hey!" Jack protested. "I'm just having some _fun_." The wind died and made Jack drop twenty feet in the air, just enough to send a thrill through his body. Jack laughed some more, and if he listened closely, he thought he could hear the wind laughing along with him.

Below him, he could see the small clusters of houses – the very definition of the suburban life. "How about let's go bring some fun and cheer to children?" Jack asked, even if it was only the middle of fall. He would bring an early winter this year. The wind responded to his command, bringing him down in a death dive towards Earth.

His eyes began to water. Jack squinted because otherwise gales feeling like sharp knives would torment them. Even so, they obscured his vision until he was forced to rub at the salty droplets in felt a little dizzy from what seemed like a trip halfway around the world, only remembering small snippets of the vast world beneath him.

A woman raked her leaves into a pile on her lawn while talking on a cellphone frantically. "No William, _no_. What – what do you think you're doing? You sat there and let him have full custody? I _can't_ believe that I hired you as my lawyer. You know what? You aren't getting a _penny_ of my money. Not a single penny."

The worries of humans seemed rather irrelevant and small from this distance, not only physically. An ache tugged at Jack's heart. He missed being human. The warmth. The people. His _sister_.

A child fell on the sidewalk and immediately burst into tears. Jack felt a protective bubble burst in his chest. He wanted to cradle the child, wanted to _comfor_t him. But he was held back by fear. He knew that he would be unseen yet again and had no desire to bring that kind of dejection upon himself.

_Jaime believes in you_, he reminded himself. _He sees you._ But then again, Jaime was and would always be a special case. As would Jaime's friends, the handful that still believed in him. He wasn't sure if they still did. A couple of them had stopped, that he knew, because he had felt a stab to his heart every time one of them had. The first time it had happened, Jack had collapsed and scared North and the other Guardians half to death.

He reluctantly left, turning away until the little boy was almost out of sight. But he couldn't help turning back until a sympathetic parent lulled the kid into small whimpers with the promise of cake and other comfort. A girl skipped towards them, face suddenly morphing into one of concern. His chest grew tight because he knew that it wasn't his business to interfere, even if he was a _Guardian_.

But there was one thing that he could do. Jack concentrated and sparks gathered in the palms of his hands, he murmured to them and the magic in them concentrated until he could hold it no longer and it erupted into a mild snowstorm. He floated away, but not before seeing the boy and girl holding their hands up to the snow in wonder, half-smiling and not even knowing that they were. It was trivial, but it did something to smooth over the ache that had started centuries ago.

The wind picked up a more urgent tone, prodded him with intentions other than mere play. Jack peered down and saw a familiar forest glade. Jack didn't really know if he wanted to go check it out, but if was already here, then he might as well. He was still ambivalent, but the wind was not.

Jack lowered in elevation towards the patch of dirt in the center of the clearing. He shivered for a second, but soon the absence of the hole under the rickety old bedframe became apparent. He let out a breath of air that he didn't know he had been holding in. Pitch was still trapped in his tunnels, where he belonged.

But then why did he have a nightmare?

"You have any idea what's going on?" Jack wondered out loud, half talking to the wind, half to himself. "Why – if Pitch couldn't have done it – then who?"

"Yes," the wind seemed to answer. "I do. I do have an answer." It whistled and created a churning platform beneath Jack's feet full of pent up energy.

"What is it?" Jack asked. The wind stilled seemed to gesture invisibly towards a certain direction – Jack thought it was roughly northwest, but he couldn't be sure. Jack understood. The wind was asking for his permission.

"_Show me_," Jack commanded. The wind didn't need Jack to tell it again. It whirled and blew so fiercely that Jack hardly coasted on its surface; rather he tumbled and bowled over and over, completely out of control.

"Whoa," Jack said. The wind had never been like this before, had always went by Jack's direction, but it wasn't as if he was complaining. He liked to have a little _fun_. An idea formed in his mind.

"Hey wind," he shouted. "Bet you can't go faster than this." Never to resist a challenge, they accelerated further, Jack and the wind, hand in hand. In jubilation, Jack raised his staff and a bolt of pure frost energy shot out, crackling and splitting the sky into two like lightning. Snow rained down, fluffy particles of cheer.

It fell onto parks and the roofs of houses, but as the scenery changed abruptly, onto that as well. That was odd. It was as if there grew a jungle just outside of the city, but not just any jungle. Vines and flowering plants sprang up along with lush undergrowth in chilly weather. The canopies of the tropical trees never seemed greener. Jack had to remind himself for a second that this was Canada, not the Amazon rainforest. He was glad it wasn't, because from what he remembered, immortal Amazon warriors did not appreciate him causing full-blown blizzards, especially not in July. Jack winced. That hadn't been the best of vacations. He had gone to go sightseeing and had left knowing he had almost been castrated.

It was small, threatened to be overwhelmed by snow, and on the edges Jack could see that the trees were browning. They were dying. And for some reason, he held that fact in importance, that this green oasis was fading and there was nothing he could do about it. It made him feel rather helpless.

The wind seemed to want him to go towards the jungle, and a part of Jack did as well – the _curious_ part. He reminded himself that this probably was dangerous, was nothing that he had ever seen before. Jack licked his lips. All the more to go and see what it was all about, how a jungle could ever survive in such a harsh environment.

The wind carried him down, and Jack ran towards it like he was going down a staircase, impatient to see what wonders it held. This had been one of the happier memories of the old days, not the people-walking-through-you part, but the exploring-like-Dora-the-Explorer part.

The wind died down and Jack landed on the ground. He expected it to be snow, or at least frost-ridden, compacted grass or something of the sort, but instead he dug his toes into dirt. Warm dirt.

"What happened here?" Jack said, completely in awe. It was even more impressive up close. The trees towered over him like the skyscrapers he had seen in this city once, downtown. Now that he was here, he could even more fully admire the perfection and the hard work that had gone into creating this place, this _haven_.

The landscaping seemed to fit together like pieces of a puzzle, the trees and the earth and the sky together in a symbiotic relationship. Jack wandered aimlessly into the heart of it, but perhaps not so aimlessly, for he soon saw the trees begin to weave together in an intricate structure resembling a house. His brows furrowed. Maybe not just a house – that hardly did it justice. It was more like a mansion, if that is, some sort of woodland spirit had decided to study the works of Postnik Yakovlev's architecture.

The corners of Jack's mouth twitched, because his friend North enjoyed nothing more than lavishing praise onto each famed Russian architect there ever was.

"Posterior Yako – who?" Jack had asked during the Christmas Eve feast, which all the Guardians began to grow tired of. North insisted on holding a feast for every single day leading up to Christmas for a month. Bunny, for one, had missed at least five of the gatherings, preferring to paint his eggs even as the Northern Lights lit up in the sky.

North had looked hurt. "_Postnik Yakovlev_, Jack. You are not knowing of the famous Russian architect? Saint Basil's Cathedral, no?" Jack looked at him blankly. North swelled up indignantly, patted his belly, and continued. "Why, the _Tsardom_ of Russia – "

He had rambled on for what seemed like hours to Jack's restless, fun-loving spirit, and just as Jack had been about to slump face-first into his eggnog, Tooth had taken his hand and had shaken her head, her vivid feathers smoothed back. "Don't listen," she had mouthed. "If you want to get out of this alive." Another shake and exasperated look at North, ten minutes in and still going strong. "Every. Single. Year."

The few bright memories he had with the Guardians were like flickering lights in his mind, contrasting with some three hundred years of darkness, and Jack held these close to his heart. He was afraid to lose them, afraid they would be stolen away, because he knew he didn't deserve them and that it was only a matter of time before they would vanish.

As he continued further, Jack's steps became more and more tentative. He felt as if he was trespassing on something that he knew nothing of and of which he had no right to. This was someone's home, he realized.

Or at least, –

The interweaving branches were covered with dust, and the entire place gave off an air of disuse and abandonment.

– it _used_ to be.

But that had never really stopped him. He had broken into countless places where he hadn't been welcome, including North's Workshop a couple decades back. So what was stopping him here?

The wind pushed him forward, blowing some of the dust off the massive structure, which Jack thought to be over six stories tall. It was dwarfed by some of the other trees, but was impressive nonetheless. A door hung off one of its hinges, about to fall off. Jack moved it aside gingerly and crossed the threshold. It didn't smell like something that hadn't been lived in for a long time. It smelled faintly floral and fresh, like a warm spring day.

He felt as if he had been launched into an entirely new world, because in his three centuries of existence, Jack had never seen anything close to this. There was a table that seemed to grow out of the floor, trunks of trees twisting together to form the legs, broad leaves sprouting out from them even though it was dim.

He moved out of the living room towards another door. Peering inside, he saw a small bed, a nightstand, and an antiquated frame sitting on it. Jack leaned over and brushed the grime of many years off the glass. A young girl smiled back at him, looking like she wouldn't want to be anywhere else. She had butterflies in her hair and was wearing a dark green dress. He could see the shadowy silhouette of another person next to her, which was a perfect description; as when Jack uncovered the face, he started in shock. This face was a familiar one.

It was Pitch. Odd, because Jack would have imagined that had Pitch been standing behind _any_ child, they would've been screaming in terror, much less smiling. Maybe she hadn't noticed he was there, as he was famous for his ability to sneak up on children. Even Jack knew that was a shaky theory.

Now that he looked at it, Pitch looked different. His face was less grey, his eyes softer, and he was smiling. Actually smiling, not that sort of fake grimace he did before. Jack had thought Pitch wouldn't have been caught _dead_ smiling like that. Jack wiped the rest of the dust off with his sleeve and narrowed his eyes. That was weird. Pitch's signature black scythe was golden. A bright golden to rival his eyes, to rival Sandy's natural color.

He tapped his fingers on the nightstand absently and frost spiraled across the wood. This house was connected to Pitch. He turned away. There was something very strange about this house. And Jack wanted to get to the bottom of it if it was the last thing he did.

With a last look at the sad little room that must have once been very special to someone, he grabbed onto his staff and flew out of the open window – and then promptly flew into a tree.

"Oof," Jack grunted, falling backwards onto the soil, which cushioned his fall. He hadn't seen _that_ tree before. It was as if it had unanticipatedly moved in his way. "Where did this come from?" he said, putting one hand on his forehead and the other on the tree to steady himself.

Maybe "this" wasn't the right way to describe the tree. It seemed alive, at least more alive than the other trees. A faint green aura surrounded the tree and it seemed to simply ooze life. The bark was twisted and knotted. Jack traced a line on the trunk until it curved into a dent on the surface. A hard and cold metallic object met his fingers.

Jack pried it out of the hole with considerable effort. It was a locket, a dainty little thing, and Jack was surprised to see not even a little rust on its silver surface. He opened a latch on its side and it split into two, sprung open to reveal the same girl for the second time that day. Frost crystals spread across it and for some reason Jack did not know, he felt the need to remove them.

He looked up at the tree again, its branches spreading, outstretched far enough that it served as an umbrella for the entire house. "You were protecting it," Jack said, not sure whom he was speaking to. "But…why? What's so special about this locket? Who is this girl?"

The wind was silent for once, but he didn't think it was because it didn't know the answer. It was because the tree was _alive_. On so many levels.

The branches began moving, swaying back and forth until they began unmistakably reaching for Jack. He stumbled back in surprise and tripped over a tree root, falling hard on the ground. The green glow grew much stronger – Jack could see it much more clearly now that the tree was only inches away – and all of a sudden he was airborne, lifted more gently than he had thought he would be.

They stopped. And then the two thick limbs wrapped around Jack's torso began recoiling in on themselves, sinking into the vast wall that was the trunk. Jack yelled in alarm, closing his eyes and waiting for a painful impact.

And then he was inside the tree. He could tell because it was damper and mustier than before. That, and a tree beetle fell on his head. A squirrel skittered down the trunk, digging into the bark. Jack walked in circles around the hollowed out tree, wondering how it could be alive if there was nothing inside of it. The wind could not reach him inside this room. Jack realized that he was on his own.

Steeling his resolve, he moved towards where the green light seemed to glow the strongest. Except it wasn't exactly green now, but more tinged with gold. Like Pitch's scythe, he thought errantly. And dreamsand. He walked into another cavern in the tree – it was like a house of its own – and the breath rushed out of him.

"You just love surprising me, wind, don't you?" he said. "Okay – maybe I'm not on my own."

In the middle of the room, on a round piece of wood, covered by blankets of leaves and flowers, with golden butterflies in her hair, was the girl. The same girl he had seen on the locket. The same girl that he had seen in the picture. The same girl that he had seen with Pitch. She had dark, wavy hair and a cherub-like face. She had a peaceful look on her face and rosy cheeks.

He shifted his weight nervously, waiting for something but not sure what he was waiting for. He didn't want to wake her up, because she looked like a child – something told him that in this case appearances were deceiving and that she was practically ancient – and he protected children.

He approached her and sat on the edge of the bed, prodding a mushroom growing on the base of it with his bare foot. Jack turned back to stare at the girl, which he didn't find so awkward since she was asleep. He was so focused on her that he didn't notice the green tendrils resembling the tree's aura creeping towards him.

"Whoa!" Jack cried, lurching backwards, away from the green, translucent light, almost touching the slumbering girl. He picked up his staff. "Get away from me," he said, trying to sound confident. "Leave me alone."

A bolt of frost shot out from the arch on his staff, but the glow didn't shy away from it. Rather, it formed a vortex of green energy and absorbed it, only growing larger in size.

"This is bad," he said, voice shaking. It was.

It formed a cocoon around Jack until all he could see was green light. Fear wormed its way into his very core. Jack felt his mouth opening out of his own accord, something flooding into his body. It was warm, but there was a dangerous edge to it, like the smell of an approaching thunderstorm.

_I am never going anywhere with you again, wind_, Jack thought, but even his feeling of betrayal was muddled. He fell on his side, his senses dulled, and then he knew no more.

* * *

Jack woke up surrounded by a golden mass that he soon found, to his horror, was _moving_. He sat up, gasping and hundreds of the golden butterflies that were on the girl fluttered away from him. He held one of them in the palm of his hand, stroking its soft wings with his thumb.

He groaned. "How long have I been out?" There was no answer, but then again, Jack hadn't expected one. Three centuries alone had at least taught him that, along with developing a habit of talking to himself.

Looking around him, he realized he was still in the tree, and that – a cold band on his overheating body – he was still holding the locket. The girl was still on her bed, in the exact position that he had seen her last, eyes shut. Jack wanted to say that he'd be back, but that was a promise that he didn't know if he could keep.

Now, there were more pressing matters in his head. Firstly, how exactly to get out of this wooden prison. He decided to shoot some frost at the wall, just to see what would happen. Frost shot across the bark with a beauty that Jack had always admired about the crystalline structures. Nothing happened, except that it immediately began to melt like the tree was generating its own heat. Or rather, with a second glance back at the girl, she was. The green aura had vanished except for a thin layer that seemed to surround the child.

Jack took a few steps forward and put his hand on an empty place on the inside of the trunk. He focused on it, because something, some gut feeling told him to. "Open sesame," he said jokingly, his fun nature appearing at inappropriate moments like always, always in the face of danger or oppression. To Jack's shock, the bark contracted, a hole opening up in the side of the tree. Fresh air flooded in and Jack took a deep breath.

"I…didn't know I could do that," he said slowly, frowning bemusedly. The wind seemed to agree. "Does controlling trees fall under wintery powers?"

He climbed out from the hole and slid down to the forest floor. As soon as he made contact, he fell to his knees in a sudden wave of nausea, finally propping himself up with his staff. He felt strange, like he was overflowing with something, like his insides were churning.

"Nothing like finding Sleeping Beauty's reincarnation and then getting possessed by weird green stuff, right?" he said, chuckling weakly.

He turned back to the hole and shifted so that he could see the girl through it. Jack slipped the locket on its chain around his neck, held his staff with both hands, and prepared to leave. But he felt like some other form of farewell was necessary.

"I'll be back," Jack promised, and then he was gone on the winds. "Take me home."

The wind pulled him in another direction. "_Hey_," Jack protested. "What're you doing? The North Pole is that way. You know, north?"

Exasperated, the wind continued in the same direction as before, and Jack followed because his friend rarely led him astray. Once, maybe. After today, twice. _Or maybe_, he thought, the tree in the distance almost out of sight, _it wasn't a mistake_.

"Okay, wind," he said. "Show me… whatever you want to show me."

They glided across mountainous terrain, sierras, and rivers to a faraway place that seemed rather random to Jack. He let himself be dragged along, but after an hour, Jack had had enough.

"If you're just gonna take me somewhere and not tell me where, then why don't we just head back? Bunny is never going to let me hear the end of – " The trees cleared to form something else entirely, a large tunnel in the middle of a bare, rocky patch of dirt, a circle of grass around it. A bedframe sat over it.

"Wait, what?" Jack asked, eyes widening. "But th-that's Pitch's lair. If this is Montana, how…" That was alarming. Either this was some sort of joke, which he didn't think it was because Pitch wasn't someone to be taken lightly, or Pitch's tunnels had expanded a lot. Perhaps things hadn't ended as nicely as he thought.

"This is _really_ bad," he said, throat constricting. "If Pitch is back, I need to go tell the other Guardians."

He was about to fly away, but Jack couldn't help but to turn back and to hover in place indecisively. "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" he asked. A moment passed. "Let's go check it out." Jack dove into the hole like a peregrine falcon, the light of the sun soon replaced by that of dark.

Jack almost hit a pile of dirt, avoided it, and tumbled down the hole, completely out of control. He stood up, brushing off his sweatshirt and pants. Pitch's home looked no different than it had years ago. It was damp and dark, there was dirt everywhere – and he meant _everywhere_ –, and the décor was nothing short of creepy. He crept closer, feeling the need to sneak.

_What if Pitch is still here?_ There had been a few changes made. The only light source, the dark globe that used to be the centerpiece of his lair, was stashed in a corner, lights still flickering, each representing a darling little child that believed.

His scythe was placed in a corner, covered by a sheet like Pitch couldn't bear to look at it or something. Jack was about to uncover it when –

"Jack Frost." The voice was threateningly silky and sent shivers down his spine just like it had done before. Jack whirled around, staff in hand, trying to keep from shaking.

Pitch was back.

And from the looks of it, he had enough power to open up the tunnels again, to give Jack a nightmare all the way at the North Pole.

"Well, I can't say that you look different," Pitch continued, his black robes dragging on the floor. He may have looked the same from afar, but up close, Jack could see that his face was more pallid, taking on an unhealthy air. Pitch studied his hands, a white teacup in hand, contrasting with everything around him that was, well, black.

"Would you like a cup of tea? I do believe I have some left." Jack's lips tightened. Now Pitch was just patronizing him. He wanted to retort, but his voice died out in the back of his throat.

Pitch continued. "Though I do believe that you would prefer it iced, but I think that you can add that yourself, Frost."

"Pitch. You're back," Jack said, still in could take too much excitement in one day after all. "You're – "

"Anything else _obvious_ to point out, Jack Frost? Or did you just come here to chat about how I'm _obviously_ here and whether or not you and your silly little Guardians can stop my _obviously_ dastardly new plan?" Pitch drawled in a bored voice.

Jack was speechless again.

"Still _ever_ so eloquent, aren't you? Well then, shall we?" Pitch gestured towards his teacup and moved towards another tunnel without turning back to see if Jack was following him or not. The exit was still open. Jack sighed, cursed his curiosity not for the first time, and followed Pitch, the grip on his staff getting tighter. He still remembered the last time he had been alone with Pitch, when Pitch had broken his staff in half. He felt the vulnerability and fear once more, the exact same feeling he had when it had dropped down the chasm, clattered on the icy floor.

Pitch sat down next to a table and waved to another chair across from him. Jack stared. Light streamed in from a window on the roof. There was a kitchen, a table, an armchair and lamp in the corner. It was _almost_ cozy.

"So, Jack Frost," Pitch said as Jack sat down hesitantly, clasping his long fingers together. "I've been _dying_ to know how you and your friends have been. Well, I presume, now that I'm out of business?"

Unexpectedly, Pitch sat upright and his head was forced up by an invisible force, as if under some sort of uncontrollable spasm. There was a moment of stunned silence. And then streams of shadowy figures streamed out from his open mouth, screeching and darting towards a tunnel, uncovering Pitch's scythe in the process. Pitch coughed, shot up, and hurriedly covered it up again before Jack fully registered the entire thing, but he could have sworn that he saw _gold_.

Pitch's face was drawn, and became even more pale than usual. The dark color seemed to be leeching out of his hair, turning more of a dark brown than the raven black it had been.

"My apologies," Pitch said, a tight-lipped smile on his face. "I didn't mean for you to see that. It happens rather often these days. I suppose it gave you quite a shock."

"What…just happened?" Jack asked bleakly.

"Well, I guess you could say, in plain terms, I'm losing my touch." Pitch was wry as ever, but something in his tone – something that threatened to become _ugly_ – told Jack that he didn't want to talk about it anymore.

That didn't stop Jack. "You – a Nightmare just –"

"Yes," Pitch said, irritated. "I noticed. Anything else to say? No?" He sighed and combed fingers through his hair so that it became further disheveled. Jack suddenly saw very little of the evil, malevolent nemesis that the Guardians had fought against not too long ago.

Pitch studied Jack for a moment with his sharp golden eyes and Jack felt rather uncomfortable. His eyes traced the contours of Jack's legs, his torso, and then his movements stopped. Pitch stiffened and his lips thinned.

"What is _that_?" Pitch asked, any color that he had in his face draining out as if he had seen a ghost. He pointed towards Jack's neck.

Jack looked down. "Oh, it's just a locket that I found." Confused, he added, "Why?"

"What? Oh, but that must mean… But I thought that it had…? _Could it be_? Sera – "

Pitch was stuttering and he looked distraught and as wild as a Nightmare itself. Jack grew nervous because this was someone that he recognized, not like the Pitch that had just confronted him, but the Pitch that looked like he could attack at any second. Like he would at any moment call upon his army of Nightmare horses. He fingered the locket.

"Give it back," Pitch gasped, but his face soon turned stony. "Get your _filthy_ hands off of it, Frost, and give it back."

He stood up, reached for his scythe that wasn't there, hand closing on air, and put his hand on the table for support. Jack backed up until he was against the wall of the tunnel.

"Pitch," he said, hoping to snap him out of this mood. He should have known that Pitch hadn't changed, though he had hoped. "_Pitch_."

He didn't seem to hear. Pitch dove for Jack, hand reaching for the locket. All that Jack knew was that he had to protect it, because it belonged to the girl sleeping in that tree. His staff was leaning against the table, too far away for him to grab onto it. There was nowhere to hide, nowhere to run.

Jack shut his eyes tightly and waited for an inevitable tug on his neck, waited for the pain to come. His heart pounded in utter panic. Instead, he felt a rumbling beneath his feet and a strain in his chest. He opened his eyes, startled, just in time to see the earth in the tunnel collapse and form a dark shield in front of him, churning and moving him backwards in a protective spherical shell until he was ejected out into broad daylight.

Jack didn't wait another second, as soon as he was outside. "Wind!" he called out to the sky. His voice traveled and echoed even though there was nothing to rebound off of. "The North Pole." This time, there was no disobedience, no hesitation. He soared across the sky, faster than anything, leaving flapping birds behind in his dust.

In his haste to leave the dreaded place, Jack never saw that thunder had clapped behind him and lightning had struck, almost as if reacting to his anxiety, which he had never been able to call on before. He never saw that his staff had been left behind in Pitch's lair and he hadn't gone back to get it. He never saw that Pitch had watched the place on the wall for minutes after where he had disappeared, clutching at his heart and heaving for breath like Jack had stolen part of it and he _wanted it back_.

Back in the winding tunnels, under the rickety old bedframe, down in Pitch's lair, the former archenemy of the Guardians took hold of a scythe that was anything but completely black, kicked aside a staff half-heartedly, and whispered a name softly, voice breaking.

_"Seraphina."_

It was only one of the many things that Jack did not see in his flight to see Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy, even if it did mean that he would have to sit through another insufferable pre-Christmas feast.

* * *

**A/N**: Assuming that anyone actually read this, leave a review! Or favorite. Or follow. In case you follow, I want to warn you in advance that I update when I want to, and that may or may not be in the near future. If you read this, I love you.

-wiindsong


	2. Do I Frighten You?

**A/N: **Thanks to a reviewer on Archive of Our Own, I remembered to update on fanfiction. Shoutout to **Nichts**. Thanks buddy. Anyways, I'm really sorry for not updating, yadda, yadda, yadda. If you want the full apology, read it on Archive of Our Own cause I'm too lazy to repeat it. Anyways, after a couple rounds of edits, I finally posted it, though not entirely satisfied with this chapter.

Answering the question of a guest without entirely spoiling the story - Jack isn't turning into a girl, per se, albeit that is an interesting idea. He's becoming "Mother Nature" in a metaphorical sense, I guess you could say. Merely developing her powers. Without developing her gender. It's hard to explain, ok?

* * *

"If you want to keep a secret, you must also hide it from yourself."

-George Orwell

* * *

**day one, later** –

It took Jack a couple of hours to fly to the North Pole, not because of a deficiency in speed, but because for once, he couldn't find the energy to break the spell of lethargy. Not ever had he found his usual cheer so far out of reach, not even when Bunnymund had forcefully weaned Jack off caffeine – and failed, he might add. He drifted across an entire hemisphere with an ease that surpassed most human transportation, yet was surprisingly pitiful for a magical frost spirit.

In retrospect, Jack decided that Pitch's behavior had been nothing short of oddly spontaneous and out of character. The man – if he could be called one, because Jack wasn't really sure what Pitch was – never let Jack ruffle a single hair on his head, let alone lose his composure completely. If Jack had, according to Bunny, an endless well of annoyingness within, Athen Pitch had an endless ability to ignore it. Until now.

And there was something even more odd. When he had made his escape, it had been dark and musty and all a blur, but he was sure that it was almost as if he had moved the earth. When he had signed up to be a frost spirit, he hadn't known that dirt would included in his list of powers. As of late, all he had known he was capable of was making a few snowballs and shooting some frost.

The sunset streaked across the sky in a fiery palette of oranges and pinks, an ephemeral glow bringing a warm tinge to Jack's cheeks and to the terrain below. The icy glaciers below him emitted a vast spectrum of light, the cracks between forming endless, gaping chasms that must have led to the very center of the earth. He was steadily approaching a grand, castle-like structure sitting on the edge of a cliff, the wind nudging his tired feet like the gentle buffeting of waves against the shore.

Wait, tired? Jack had never felt as tired as he did right then and there, though a good day of spreading snow days and cheer had left him moderately weary before. He felt as if he could barely hold the winds together, wild as it was. For a moment, a shade of worry stroked through his heart, like an Olympic swimmer, should he lose control and plummet from the sky.

Jack flew through the window of North's Workshop, clutching his staff closely, still in shock. It was an old habit, to not use the main entrance. He had tried and failed to break into the Workshop for decades, and any competent criminal knew not to use the front door. After all, even before he had been abducted and shoved in a sack by them, he knew to avoid the seven-foot yetis lumbering around the North Pole.

"Jack!" someone called, most likely Tooth, as she was the only female Guardian. She gradually came into view, a fresh splash of blue and green against the red motif that patterned across the walls. "Where have you been? North has practically worried his beard off. Wait – what's wrong?"

For a moment, total confusion struck Jack. Toothiana was easily the most perceptive of any of the Guardians, but even her motherly instincts that made her particularly tuned in to Jack's emotions wouldn't be that accurate. She was at least twenty feet away, maybe more.

Or perhaps, he realized, he hadn't really given her a run for her money. Looking into a nearby window, he saw that his eyebrows were bunched together and that his mouth dipped down into a contemplative frown. He quickly straightened it out before Toothiana got any closer and frosted the window on impulse with his staff, as he always did when he got nervous.

"Nothing. I'm fine," Jack said, lying through his teeth. He didn't want to worry the other Guardians, and from what he had seen of Pitch, he didn't think that the Boogeyman would be able to cause too much harm.

_Because of me_, Jack thought, and was surprised to find that he felt guilty. Pitch had been and would most likely soon be their worst nightmare, no pun intended, the very enemy that had caused the Man in the Moon to create the Guardians in the first place. But even he couldn't ignore that the influence of the locket on Pitch had been nothing short of violent. Jack wasn't used to having that kind of effect over someone.

Toothiana stared at him incredulously and pursed her lips. Her feathers shuffled back and forth and her wings beat a calm humming noise into the evening air. She opened her mouth as if about to say something and then closed it again. Her bright, multicolored eyes scintillated like mounds of gems - rubies, emeralds, sapphires all heaped together.

"Okay," she said reluctantly. "If you say so."

This phase lasted no more than a couple of seconds, in which her feathers gave a momentary slump and her eyes crinkled in anxiety. It seemed a rather gross overreaction, but she and the other Guardians rarely saw Jack in a bad mood. Jack normally kept those mood swings to himself, but today he couldn't find the motivation to do so. To them, he was the carefree Guardian of fun - no worries, no deadlines, just play and laughter. It had been true, but he wasn't so sure now.

"Well anyways," Tooth said, giving Jack a small smile. "North cooked the entire feast by himself; you know how he gets around this time of the year. Wouldn't let the elves or the yetis touch a single thing."

"Not even the radishes?" Jack joked weakly.

"Especially not the radishes." Tooth looked at him. "I know you hate them, but just remember that North likes them, and that I don't think he appreciates when you call them mushy and overcooked."

Jack chuckled and Tooth continued. "Besides, he'd be just devastated to know that you missed out on one of his feasts. He knows how much you love them."

Jack lifted an eyebrow. "Was that a joke, Toothiana?"

"I don't know. Maybe. I can joke you know, Jack. Jack. Stop laughing!" Seeing Toothiana's mortified face only made Jack laugh more.

"Sorry," Jack wheezed, leaning onto the brick wall for support and wrapping both of his arms around his sides. "It's just that I always thought of you as prim and proper."

Toothiana looked mortified. "I am not prim and proper. There's a reason people call me the Warrior Queen."

"Brush your teeth and don't forget to floss!" Jack imitated, still laughing. "And you're a fairy. Sparkles and wings and all. That has to earn you some points on the prim scale."

"Hey," she said. "Plaque is a serious problem nowadays. You're lucky you're a frost spirit and you don't need to brush your teeth to keep them sparkling white. But every time I get a tooth from some child that hasn't been conducting proper dental hygiene – "

"You know what?" Jack asked. "I don't think I want to hear it."

"Oh, Jack," Tooth sighed. "No wonder Bunny says you're insufferable." But when Jack looked at her next, there was just the faintest hint of a smile on Tooth's face.

They settled into a ephemeral silence, one that Tooth felt perfectly comfortable because, well, when you're immortal, you start to run out of things to say after a few centuries or so. At least, that's what she had thought until she'd met Jack - for a spirit that was now over four hundred years old, he was still as voluble as ever.

Jack was too caught up in his own thoughts to notice that Tooth had stopped flying and had stopped before the hall where all of North's feasts took place. North probably delighted in these gatherings because very few days of the year did the Guardians meet up, even now. Usually it was just Jack. He had no better place to go.

It wasn't as if Jack didn't have anywhere to take up residence. If he really went on a vacation, , had the time to go, then he would go somewhere with the ideal weather - maybe Alaska. It was just that he didn't feel like it. Just staying in the Workshop made Jack go soft. Before, he had been able to handle his solitude, but when company was so eagerly offered - it was another matter altogether.

"Jack?" Tooth called, her bemused voice breaking his train of thought. "Watch out for the -"

"Oof," Jack said and fell backwards in an undignified sort of way. He rubbed his head clumsily and gave the pillar he had just run into one of his best glares.

Turning back to Tooth, who had covered her mouth, eyes alight with mirth, Jack complained, "Couldn't have warned me sooner, Tooth? What if I had knocked one of my teeth out?"

His tone was playful and teasing as usual, but a look of horror spread rapidly across Tooth's face. She covered her open mouth and her eyes widened.

"I'm so sorry Jack," she cried, voice shrill. "I wasn't thinking about your poor teeth." She flitted from side to side as she always did when she was feeling guilty.

"Well, that's new," Jack muttered. Tooth was always thinking about his teeth, and now that he had reminded her, she flew over to pry open his mouth and examine them again.

She sighed in relief and said, "They're okay."

Jack grinned, but with Tooth's fingers in his mouth, it probably turned out as a grimace. He felt an infectious good mood spread into him. Sometimes the Guardians were unbelievably gullible, clueless, or earnest for their age- for crying out loud, they were twice as old as Jack -, but they cheered him up like no one else could.

"Jack!" a new voice bellowed. "And Tooth. Long time no see, friends." His Russian accented voice was warm and deep, the type that you generally associate with hot chocolate and discussions by the fireplace.

"It's been one day, North," Tooth said, slightly cross. "And Jack almost lost a tooth because of your feast!" She said it like making someone lose a tooth was a capital crime.

"And what a shame that would have been," Bunny said, hopping into the room, polishing his beloved boomerang. His expression was fierce as always; Jack got the feeling that Bunny hadn't exactly forgiven him for the last time he had ruined Easter. Or the time before that. Or the time before that.

"Good to see you, Kangaroo," Jack said in a tone that was anything but good-natured. He prepared himself for another round of banter.

Bunny bristled as always, trying to make his height of over six feet seem even more impressive, puffing out his fluffy, gray chest. "What did you say, Frost?"

"Bunny!" North cried cheerfully and pulled him into a giant bear hug. It didn't quite work the same way it did for Jack, because Bunny's feet were only lifted a couple of inches off the floor. "You have made it! How was trip?"

"Yeah, yeah," the long-eared Guardian said without mirth. "Trip was good. The tunnels were safe. Weather's good in the Warren. Let's just get this over with. I have eggs to paint."

"Now?" Tooth asked. "It's months away from Easter."

"I'm going to start early this year," he explained, paw gripping threateningly on his boomerang. "Just in case someone decides to play a little practical joke again." He stared pointedly at Jack.

North chuckled. "Jack will not play joke, will you Jack? He is Guardian now. Besides, is no matter. Easter is not as important as Christmas. Everybody is knowing of that."

Bunny's eyes narrowed and he began to argue, his Australian accent becoming all the more prominent when he was angry. Jack let the century-old argument wash over him like music. The history of it had began shortly after the dark ages, and hardly a year could go by without North and Bunny going through the skit again.

"Hey," Jack whispered to himself a second before Bunny did, albeit in a stronger tone. "Easter is just as important as Christmas." He had memorized the lines already. Maybe he should have become an actor instead of a frost spirit.

Jack shrugged and tapped an elf with his foot, covering its left side with a fine sheet of ice. The elf squeaked and fell over. Tooth had started on her job already, giving what seemed to be a pep talk to the cloud of fairies surrounding her.

"Where's Sandy?" Jack asked absentmindedly, thinking again back to the reopened hole in the ground. The argument was just about ending; Bunny looked huffy, but like he had run out of things to say. "Busy with his work?"

"No," North said. "Sandy is sleeping. Lots of children were needing good dreams last night."

Jack nodded without surprise because North's feasts always took a general pattern. Tooth would work all night, Bunny would glare at Jack for hours on - his record was eight by now -, Jack would doze off, and Sandy would wake up at ten to give the children their good dreams, only to fall asleep like clockwork the next morning.

North, on the other hand, would make small talk for a couple of minutes, and then rush off to supervise the making of toys. No one could blame him, after all. Christmas was only days away.

What they did blame him for was calling them there every single night for the same old boring routine. Even the first year doing it, Jack was already bored. He couldn't imagine coming every year like the other Guardians must have, half-heartedly supporting North in his dash to make Christmas a reality.

Christmas may have been one of the best holidays in the eyes of the children, but for the Guardians, it was torture. Except for one large, jolly one.

North ushered them over to the table, a twenty foot wonder piled sky-high with foods of all kinds, or so Jack thought. Upon closer examination, it was all traditional Russian food.

North beamed and asked, "What do you think? Good? I try very hard this year to make a good feast for my friends."

They mumbled praise in response, but even their replies that wouldn't have fooled anyone were enough for North. The Guardian of Wonder looked every bit as happy as he had... yesterday. Or the day before. Or the Christmas before that.

"Enjoy!" he bellowed again, and then opened a portal to the lower level of the Workshop. Time was of the essence during Christmas-time for North, so much that he didn't even bother taking the stairs anymore.

They all sat down, Bunny keeping a distance from Jack as to keep a close eye on him and Tooth nearby. Jack put his hand on the wooden table. Almost immediately, the wood began to shrivel and droplets of water that promptly froze came out.

Jack jumped up and shock, and Bunny almost hurled a boomerang at him in surprise.

"Anything wrong, mate?" Bunny asked carefully, looking as if he wanted an excuse to throw his recently polished boomerang at Jack.

"Nothing," Jack said slowly. "Sorry. I'm just a little jumpy."

"Yeah, well, at least you know how it feels now, mate. To have to be constantly at your paws in case something happens to your eggs. Or to the children." Bunny had somehow conjured a hard-boiled egg and painted intricate patterns over its smooth surface. "Good thing Pitch hasn't come back yet, eh?"

"Yeah," Jack said, nervous at how close Bunny had come to the truth. "Yeah, it's a good thing he hasn't."

"You're one of us, now, mate. We aren't the BIg Four anymore - should be called the Big Five." Bunny smiled, or at least as close to a smile as the gruff Guardian could get. It filled him with such a wholehearted feeling for a moment that he felt ashamed,

Jack found it funny how each of the Guardians had accepted him so quickly as a member of their group. Even now, decades after the defeat of the Nightmare King, it was hard for Jack to adjust to their confined sort of lifestyle.

"You know what, Bunny? You may look tough on the outside, but you're just a softy on the inside," said Jack. Bunny looked irritated, but he didn't reply.

He looked out the window longingly, snow whirling outside in a wild blizzard. He wanted to know what it was like to race on the wind day after day, seeing how many times around the world it could take him, sleeping whenever he got tired, creating snowstorms everywhere he went.

But now Jack had responsibilities - the children. Though he loved the little rascals with all his heart, it just wasn't the same anymore. It wasn't as if North and the others expected him to do anything, because he was Jack Frost. What else could he do but make snow days?

Whenever he made a child smile with the prospect of making snowmen and sledding, Jack felt the same sort of warm feeling inside his heart. But he also knew that, should another danger rise, the child's life would be his to take care of. He had always hated responsibility.

And he still wasn't believed in. Jaime and his handful of friends had grown into middle-aged people, seniors by now, and it was just hard to make adults believe. Jack could count on one hand how many human beings knew he existed.

It was different with North and the other Guardians. They had so many children believing in them that they hardly seemed to cherish the belief of each. Jack took whatever he could get. It was better than nothing, and he knew that nothing felt like. He knew all too well what nothing felt like.

It had been hard twenty, thirty years ago when the children had stopped believing in him. First Cupcake, then Monty, and gradually the rest. All but Jaime. Jack had expected it; after all, who would be so loyal to him as to hold steadfast in their belief for fifty years? Jaime had been a pleasant surprise, like a nice, warm pocket in his heart that was nice to have when he had forgotten it was there.

A warm, golden glow filled the room, and Jack snapped out of his reverie. Apparently, he had been daydreaming for some time, because Bunny's eggs crowded the table already - either that, or Bunny had been practicing a lot.

"Hey, Sandy," Jack greeted, yawning and stretching. "What's up?"

The question was asked more out of habit and politeness than anything, but Jack soon regretted it. A multitude of images flashed above Sandy's head, so fast and each emitting such a bright light that it was enough to give people a seizure. Jack recognized a couple here and there, but then the next image would already be present, shattering the possibility of having a cohesive message.

"Uh...sorry, Sandy. I'm kinda lost here. But I think somebody else might understand," Jack said bemusedly. The other Guardians would be full-time translators for the Sandman if they hadn't already been busy with other things.

Sandy seemed very excited about something and repeated his message again without complaint. He pointed to Jack's neck. Jack looked down and saw the silver, ornate locket, seeming so fragile resting against his chest. The look on Sandy's face - Jack could have sworn that the Guardian of Dreams looked like he had been reunited with an old friend. Or perhaps, seeing the brooding look begin to spread across a round, golden face, an enemy.

He began to gesture wildly in his excitement, images in sand appearing in and out of existence in the blink of an eye. Through the chaos, Jack could barely make out the face of a young girl, a tree, a locket, and what appeared to look like a spaceship.

"This is still about the locket, right?" Jack asked carefully. He wanted to make sure that he deciphered this right, because something on Sandy's face told him that he would want to know.

Sandy was patient still, He conjured up one image at a time until it became somewhat clearer what he meant. First appeared the locket, there was no doubt about it; the very shape had been branded into Jack's mind. Then a lightning bolt. A girl. And finally, there was the image of a looming figure that Jack recognized to be the Boogeyman.

His eyebrows furrowed in disbelief. "So you're saying that the locket belonged to a girl." Sandy nodded vigorously, urging Jack on. The little man looked ready to explode with pent up excitement as he bounced up and down, like the laws of gravity no longer applied to him.

So it belonged to the girl sleeping in the tree. Somehow, that didn't entirely surprise Jack. It had been stuck inside the very tree that she was in, after all.

"And the girl knows Pitch?"

Sandy's face was considering and he tilted his head to the side a little. Jack knew what that meant. So the girl knew Pitch, but Jack wasn't entirely right yet.

He tried again. "So the girl knows Pitch, but not that well?" Sandy, this time, shook his head so hard that Jack thought it was going to disconnect from his shoulders. The golden Guardian procured an image of two people holding hands, one tall and one short. Then the same two people with the smaller sitting on the lap of the other.

Jack thought back to the cracked photograph that he had seen of a man that had looked so similar to Pitch and the young girl, finally connecting it to Sandy's message.

"She's … his daughter," he said finally, and Sandy shot up and down triumphantly, creating an image of a bingo board above his head. It was amazing how detailed the miniscule sand sculptures could get, as if they had been carved out by the tiniest sculptor in the world.

"But how do you know this? Did you know the girl or something? Or did Pitch tell you?" Jack's curiosity didn't just stop there. He had a million more questions to ask. but the Sandman didn't exactly seem like the right recipient. He wasn't even sure if he wanted to tell the other Guardians that Pitch was back yet.

There was a sorrowful expression on Sandy's face, innocent and pure like that of a child. If North hadn't told him otherwise, Jack would have never guessed that Sandy was the oldest of any Guardian. He had existed for thousands of years before he had become a Guardian.

In the final picture Sandy would make that night, Jack saw a figure that was unmistakably that of Sandy himself and a young girl sitting together. They looked so peaceful, the golden silhouettes dancing and revolving in that midnight air that Jack was taken aback for a moment.

"She was your friend."

Sandy shrugged and nodded, looking very sad. Understanding hit Jack. The Sandman thought that the girl was gone, that Pitch's daughter was dead. Contradictory words sprung to his mouth but he couldn't bear to say them out loud.

He wasn't even sure yet that the girl was the subject in question. Jack couldn't connect the face of the sleeping child with that of Pitch, a nemesis that had sowed seeds of terror in every child across the globe since he had been only decades old.

Jack wanted to ask Sandy more, but he looked so tired and small that he pushed another question back down his throat and decided to stay quiet. It bubbled up anyhow.

"So, she's dead, right?" Jack tried to confirm, ignoring a voice in his head that he was being inconsiderate and blunt. After all, if Sandy had looked so sad at just the mention of this girl, who was he to start talking about her hypothetical death?

Sandy didn't look annoyed, thankfully. Most of the Guardians had insurmountable levels of patience; in fact, Jack would have placed a general stereotype that all Guardians were patient, had it not been for a certain Australian resembling Pooka. The golden man simply nodded once and turned away, golden sand floating above the palm of his hand.

Jack looked up as well, noticing only that Tooth and Bunny were nowhere to be seen, though the latter had covered half of the room with painted hard-boiled eggs. He sighed, brushed aside a few eggs, and placed his head on his arms, which were resting on the oaken table.

If he was a Guardian now, why did he still feel so left out? He still had difficulty telling them things that they should have a right to know, like the fact that Pitch was back. It was like there was someone restraining him from inside.

Jack wanted to wait for North, but slowly his eyes closed and he drifted off, with the last thing that he remembered being golden waves of sand spiraling from Sandy's hands out the open window towards awaiting children beyond.

* * *

**day two - **

Jack snuck out just after midnight, having not been able to sleep much after his short respite. He had woken up next to an uneaten feast, well, at least partially uneaten. Or perhaps an elf or two had taken a short break because around the food on each plate there were rings of tiny nibbles.

He stretched out muscles sore from staying in one place for two long, as they always were after he rested. Though his mind and body were usually one, sometimes they contradicted; his mind needed rest occasionally, his body was always restless. Jack pushed himself up from off the table and hooked thin fingers onto an ancient wooden staff.

He ran towards the nearest exit, wishing that the wind would be able to carry him even indoors like North's snowglobes and Bunny's tunnels. Unfortunately, this wasn't the case. The stone floor, with intricate, tiny carvings, bit into his bare feet, which were roughened from centuries of use. Jack didn't see why people wore shoes.

Panting, he flung open a window; as the wind greeted him, blanketing his hair with layers of snow, he smiled. It blew that healthy white tinge back into his cold cheeks. And with the faint tinkling lights behind him from gentle candlelight, Jack slipped out into icy darkness.

This time, he knew exactly where he wanted to go. There was no ambivalence or indecision - no, he had already been given too much time to contemplate that. Jack usually went with his gut feeling, and right now its internal GPS was telling him to trace his way back down the very route he had taken not too long ago. That made sense - Jack Frost, part-time homing pigeon.

He let himself fall from the window, limbs flung out, knowing that he would be caught like a lightweight leaf in the wind. He somersaulted and twirled himself dizzy under the light of the moon - the Man in the Moon. THe creator of the Guardians himself in all his glory.

Humoring himself, Jack let his thoughts wander, as they always did, going off tangents until he wandered light years away from where he had first begun.

_If the last time Pitch came back, the Man in the Moon made me a Guardian_, Jack thought, _then I wonder who's gonna be initiated this time._

That was an interesting idea. It was impossible for Jack to have never met another spirit or something of the sort, but he didn't know that many, and he wasn't entirely sure how many existed. He had, of course, met the Big Four before he had become a Guardian, but it was only because they were some of the most famous immortals.

Jack knew about a handful of others that were popular in modern culture - the Groundhog, Leprechaun, Pegasus. They liked to flaunt themselves before humankind and had done so for so long that they had been imbedded in its culture.

Some, on the other hand, liked to keep themselves hidden away. Jack had heard stories of seclusive spirits luring unsuspecting immortals and humans alike into their dark recesses, usually in caves or ocean abysses. The Man in the Moon hadn't created all of them. Some were said to be older than the moon itself.

He soared, bursting into cloud after cloud, each a dark wisp barely illuminated by the glow of the moon. Moisture bit at his face and froze as he went higher, until he brushed them off with his sleeve. Jack was so high above the ground that the suburbs and cities below looked like twinkling lights on a Christmas tree. Though it was below freezing, he was so attuned to the weather that it felt as if it was seventy degrees and sunny, at least to normal people. Jack would have overheated in that kind of temperature.

He looked up at the moon, a thousand questions racing through his head. Why was Pitch back? And what did the Man in the Moon have to do with this. A gray smile on a shining white face looked back. Well, that was helpful - more silence. Though it wasn't as if Jack had expected anything else.

Wind swooped through vortexes of space in between Jack and the ground, pushing him to new heights that almost made him dizzy. Thankfully, he wasn't afraid of heights. That would be like an Olympic diver, afraid of water, or a chef afraid of fire. His job description allowed no room for that fear.

In this particular moment, Jack enforced no control over the wind; he simply flowed along it like a salmon in a river, able to swim upstream but unwilling to. It began to take him along a familiar path again, across valleys and rivers to a sight that was easy on the eyes. Montana.

Pitch's little clearing arrived in sight, dark and foreboding in the lack of illumination. He didn't have to tell the wind even once to set him down. By the time he noticed the hole, he was already descending towards the entrance.

He laughed nervously, air rushing out from his lungs in a breath he hadn't realized he had been holding. "No turning back now, I guess, huh?" The wind was silent, as if it too felt the suspense pressing down on its shoulders.

It was funny how eager he had been to leave a couple of hours ago; if eager could describe the feeling he had experienced. It was more as if he felt as if a meeting with PItch was inevitable, and that he should get it over with anyways. Now that his feet were firmly planted on the ground, he stared into the dark capillary spilling into a complex network of veins and arteries beneath, able to compose an extensive list of places he would rather be than there.

He prodded some earth with the bottom of his staff, watching as a small clump of dirt was dislodged, falling so far that Jack couldn't even hear the thump that it most likely made. Unless gravity had somehow ceased to exist for a few seconds.

His resolve felt shaky. Jack stepped back a little until he wasn't dangerously close to the edge of the hole anymore and considered his options, scarce as they were. He could either go back to the safety of the North Pole without anyone having realized that he had been absent or venture into a dark tunnel where unknown perils might await him.

It was an easy choice at first, until he realized that he would never get the information that he wanted if he didn't go in. And Jack Frost was a sucker for information. He had been tormented by the Man in the Moon, who supposedly had answers to his questions, for centuries. He had let the Guardians down when his memories had been at stake, contained in their little receptacles of teeth. Now he was about to give in to temptation once more.

Jack took a deep breath and before he could change his mind, he took a step forward and plummeted downwards, freefalling to another universe below.

As reaching the ground began to seem a more probable event, Jack started to panic, thoughts racing through his head a mile per minute. He had fallen for more than a couple of seconds, at least, and his speed was only increasing. Though he was immortal - but not entirely sure he couldn't be killed -, a couple hundred foot drop couldn't feel all too good.

Oddly, the ground seemed to reach up towards him, reacting to his anxiety. It swelled up like the crescendo of a great musical piece, softened and eased his landing. It felt as if he had fallen onto the world's largest pillow rather than dirt and rocks.

He looked around and even in the dim light he noticed it, most likely because it radiated light itself.

"Whoa," he said. There, leaning against the wall was a golden scythe, as if that name did it justice, shimmering like Sandy's dreamsand. It was one of the most impressive weapons he had ever seen. It made his staff look like a child's toy.

He lurched forwards without actually noticing, drawn to it like a magnet. Of course, Jack had seen Pitch with his scythe before, the two of them making quite the intimidating team. But it had changed entirely. The edges weren't as jagged as before, nor as rough and unformed. The reformed scythe before him could only be described as majestic, the edges a soft metallic color, light and versatile. It somehow utilized the small amount of moonlight to the maximum, shooting off rays of glory in a three-yard radius around it.

It looked entirely out of place. Not like something that would belong to Pitch Black, the Nightmare King, the Boogeyman, or whatever else he was called. Jack only had one name, for all that he knew. Maybe the scarier you were, the more names people decided to give you.

"Frost." The voice was cold and without humor. "Decided to show up again?"

Jack whirled around on his toes, reaching for his staff and pointing it directly at the figure behind him. "Do you always sneak up on people?" It seemed like the wrong moment to ask the question, but he was infamous for speaking without thinking.

"It's habit." Pitch seemed determined to make his answers as short and concise as possible, as if he wanted to get the very conversation over with.

Speaking of Pitch, he looked the worse for wear. There were dark bags under his face, underlining his wild eyes with smoky, expressive marks, and his hair flew out in every which direction.

"Yeah, that's cool. Being the Boogeyman and all, I - I get it. So, yeah," Jack shuffled his feet around awkwardly, abashed at have being caught. It wasn't as if he hadn't expected it.

"You know," he said finally, will collapsing under Pitch's intense golden stare. "This was a really bad idea. I shouldn't have come. I'm just gonna go now. Glad to see you're okay. Um… see you later, I guess." He was about to turn to leave when Pitch clasped a firm hand around Jack's wrist.

"Wait," Pitch said. "So eager to leave, are you, Frost? Do I frighten you?"

When Jack got a good look at him, Pitch was almost smiling. He could see it in his golden eyes, some brand of good humor struggling to push through that somber mask. It was a mocking, sarcastic glow that infused Jack with a smidgen of hope.

"No," Jack stated. He thought he sounded very much like a rebellious child. "You wish. I'm not scared of you." A part of him wanted to say, "Not when you're like this," but he pushed it back down his throat.

"Lies," Pitch replied, voice becoming softer. "Why are you lying, Jack? I can smell your fear from a mile away. It's so distinctive I couldn't have mistaken it for that of anyone else. You fear me. You fear what I might do to you, to your Guardians."

"And more importantly," he continued, "if you fear me so, why did you come back? I suppose it makes complete sense in your mind - someone threatens you and you come closer. I'm no Guardian, Jack. I'm not a big jolly ball of wonder, nor - gods forbid - a fluffy little rabbit."

_Gods?_ Jack thought, musing over Pitch's word choice. The notion left his mind quickly in light of other matters - namely, delivering a scathing retort.

"You think I don't know that?" Jack asked incredulously. "It's not as if I just forgot entirely about what happened fifty years ago - when you tried to take over the world. I'm not stupid."

"Oh, I agree," Pitch said, beginning to circle around Jack in a way that made him feel like prey. "You're something else entirely. So tell me Jack, why did you come back? You knew I wasn't exactly going to welcome you back with open arms."

"Keep your friends close and your enemies closer, right?" Jack laughed breathily. The reply sounded shaky even to him.

"Really?" Pitch said, leaning in closer, so close that Jack could smell him - a musty scent of sandalwood and bay rum. "I don't believe you. If you wanted to keep me close, then you could have done that thirty, forty years ago. I suppose that is the question - why now, Jack Frost?"

"So I was curious," Jack said, something indignant in him firing up. "Sue me."

"Well then, indulge my curiosity and give me an actual answer," Pitch said resolutely. Jack saw no way to sway him otherwise.

"Fine. I don't know how to explain it," he said reluctantly, as Pitch raised an arched eyebrow. "I was curious. And I felt kind of sorry for you, locked up in that hole for fifty years. All I saw was the new hole that opened up in Montana when I was flying cross-country yesterday -"

"A new entrance opened up?" Pitch asked, suddenly looking very interested. "I wasn't aware of that. That's how you got in, correct?"

"There are more?" Jack said, feeling alarmed. "How come I - we - haven't noticed any of them? I've practically been to every spot in the United States in the last fifty years."

"But not all at once," Pitch answered. "Maybe over the course of fifty years, but in perhaps one year, you couldn't possibly have traveled everywhere. And not all of them are in the United States."

He started laughing. "What is it?" Jack asked, abruptly self-conscious.

Pitch rubbed the bridge of his nose. "I'm sorry, it's just that it seems a rather stupid thing to do - to risk your life because you felt sorry for someone. What if I had attacked you," he said, moving behind Jack, "or kept you captive here?" Jack could feel Pitch's hot breath on the back of his neck.

He couldn't answer, couldn't move, too aware of Pitch's proximity. A frost spirit, frozen to the spot. The irony of it was apparent to Jack.

"You are too trusting of people. Only seeing the best out of them, blind to everything else," Pitch said. "If I had really tried to hurt you, do you really doubt that I could?"

"But you're weaker now," Jack blurted out, only wanted to rid of the uncomfortable air that surrounded them. He felt somewhat suffocated. "The shadows - they aren't obeying you anymore."

Pitch's lips tightened. Jack got the feeling that he had said something wrong, but before he could make amends, Pitch spoke. "You're right. For such a naive frost spirit, you can come remarkably close to the truth." And that was the end of that matter, or so Pitch thought. Jack couldn't just let it rest there.

"I - I want to know," he added.

Pitch stared at him, eyebrows raised. "Pardon?"

"Why are you weaker now? What happened to you while you were trapped in here -or is it something that I did? Because the last time I came, that shadow came out of you - "

His ramble was cut off with an impatient remark. "It isn't as if you could have done this, Frost. Don't place yourself in such high regard; you don't have the ability to do anything. If I were to attack you and your pathetic Guardians again - "

"You would lose," Jack finished, cutting him off.

Pitch's mouth tightened. "Well, aren't you obstinate as hell."

As if hadn't heard that line before. "Anything else I don't know?" Jack asked, voice adopting that same satirical monotone it did every time he spoke to Bunny.

Jack looked down and saw a shimmering glint of metal, and - remembering the locket that he had forgotten to take off - he went out on a limb and shrugged it off, holding it towards Pitch in an outstretched palm. Pitch's golden eyes widened. In the very back of his head, Jack wondered if he had gone too far. That had become a habitual feeling.

"But this can, right?" Jack said, recalling how Pitch had reacted to the locket at first. He looked like that right now, mouth slightly open, as if he couldn't believe what Jack was doing. He did not stir for a while, then took the locket from Jack with shaking hands. His trembling fingers brushed against Jack's for the briefest of moments. They were so warm that they sent a shiver snaking up his back.

Pitch grasped the locket so tightly that his knuckles turned white, enveloped it into his long hands so that only a lean cord dangled out. If he hadn't known Pitch, then he would have said that the man was close to tears. Pitch didn't seem like the type to cry.

He swallowed, seemed to compose himself, and murmured something that Jack could barely catch as they danced through the air on a whisper. "Thank you." He probably hadn't meant for Jack to hear. The Nightmare King, actually thanking someone. What that would do for his reputation.

It was as if - Jack realized - the locket was alive, like a long-lost friend that Pitch had not seen for centuries, finally return to its rightful home. If Pitch made a fist, the locket seemed to fit perfectly into the seam between his fingers and palm, as if he had manufactured the trinket himself. Or perhaps he had. Jack was way out of his depth here.

"Come in," Pitch said suddenly, breaking Jack's train of thought. "It seems we have a lot to discuss."

This time, there was a definite, grateful - albeit small - smile on his face. The entire air seemed to warm, as if Pitch had magically lifted the dark atmosphere. Jack could suddenly notice the finite details of the lair, realizing that it wasn't the average villain's hideout. On the walls, there hung painting after painting, the material cracking, all dating back to the Renaissance or earlier still. There were built-in bookshelves on the walls, stocked with books in languages he could not read. Candlelight illuminated the dimmest areas of the room. It was odd that he hadn't noticed it before.

"You've been redecorating," Jack said in wonder. No longer was it the same dreary place, littered with rusted birdcages, the centerpiece a dark globe. "It looks nice."

"Oh, I've tidied up here and there," Pitch said, brushing off the remark with the air of a monarch. "It was getting rather unsightly. Wouldn't do for visitors."

_He has changed_, Jack thought, the doubt being erased from his mind.

This time, when he followed Pitch into the sitting room - having to take two steps for every one of his long strides - there was no preexistent fear in his mind. He wished he had been afraid, had turned back there, had never visited Pitch in the first place, for there was no diviner in the world who could have predicted what web of plots and secrets he would soon be plunged into.

* * *

**A/N: **Sorry guys, again. As always, read and review! Or favorite. Or follow. Or do god knows what it's America people do whatever you want and this is the worst run on sentence I've ever written sorry it's kinda going on and on but I feel like rambling today

-wiindsongieeeeee


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